


A Shadow And A Thought

by starryeyedknight



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Boromir Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, and very much wants the best for his friends, in which Boromir is very ace and very kind, some background Legolas/Gimli too, tw: mild internalise aphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-08
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29926779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyedknight/pseuds/starryeyedknight
Summary: 'A fool, for looking at the Captain of Gondor with such admiration?' Boromir thinks to tease and then bites the jest back. That would be a joke for the soldiers’ guardroom, and though Eowyn has a fierce she has long had no opportunity for such jests, no freedom for camaraderie and foolishness. Maybe that is part of the problem.When Boromir lives, this time it is not Aragorn who receives the heart of the White Lady of Rohan.
Relationships: Éowyn/Faramir (Son of Denethor II)
Comments: 4
Kudos: 28





	A Shadow And A Thought

AN: Inspired by the thought that if Eowyn was attracted to Aragorn mostly because of his great and valiant deeds, she might instead have been attracted to Boromir if he’d lived. Because everyone loves Boromir.

  
TW for slight internalised aphobia, soon resolved.

  
-

  
_“And yet, Eomer, I say to you that she loves you more truly than me; for you she loves and knows; but in me she loves only a shadow and a thought: a hope of glory and great deeds, and lands far from the fields of Rohan.” – The Houses of Healing, RotK_

  
_“Boromir, five years the elder, beloved by his father, was like him in face and pride, but in little else. Rather he was a man after the sort of King Eärnur of old, taking no wife and delighting chiefly in arms; fearless and strong, but caring little for lore, save the tales of old battles.” – LOTR Appendix A_

  
-  
The evening before they ride to the Black Gate, the Steward of Gondor speaks with the White Lady of Rohan within the city gardens.  
  
Aragorn had been kind – kinder, perhaps, than Boromir might be in his shoes; for a man rejecting the love of such a fair woman deserves a little ribbing, at least - and spoke words of gentle counsel with him before he set off. “It’s no light thing, to speak so to such a lady, but you have a kind heart beneath all that bluster, my friend.” His king’s lips twitched, and Boromir suspected jests about the swollen egos of proud Gondorians are being restrained. “Are you quite sure that she feels…”  
  
“Of course I’m sure,” Boromir returned. A satisfied civilian in the lists of love, he nonetheless is not so blind that he does not recognise such affection in another’s eyes when it is directed at him. If nothing else, he could not fail to recognise the signs of love after spending so many days with that blasted elf and the dwarf.  
  
“Then I trust your judgement.” Aragorn’s eyes softened. “Be kind to her, Boromir.”  
  
“I could be nothing but.”  
  
-  
  
He makes his way slowly up to the sixth circle, to the Houses of Healing. The grudging complaints of his muscles make him gasp and then, like an old friend, the much louder protestations of old arrow wounds come to haunt him, one, two, three. He swears, very loudly indeed. _You should have left me there_ , he remembers complaining to Aragorn as they chased the uruk-filth across the wide span of Rohan, every wound screaming fit to tear him apart. _Look at me! I’ve become an old man._ There would be a time he might have sprinted the seven levels of Minas Tirith without so much as breaking a sweat.  
  
The path to the Houses are a well-trod path for him, however; he knows them well. He has spent many a fretful hour kneeling by the bedside of his little brother, begging to whatever Power might be that he might be spared – _take me_ , he whispered many times, _take me and everything I am, take the city itself if you are so cruel, only let my little brother live._  
  
_Boromir?_ Faramir whispered when Aragorn revived him. _How can this be? Mithrandir told us you were alive and yet in dreams I saw you as one dead…_  
  
And so you choose to pay me back in kind by giving me the same fright? Boromir spluttered through his tears as he embraced his brother. _Right glad I am that we have never crossed swords in anger; see what a remorseless enemy you make!_  
  
Faramir laughed at that, they both laughed; but if Boromir’s laugh trailed off into rough, choked sobs no-one blamed him for it. Mithrandir’s hand lay tender upon his shoulder. It was the wizard who had told Boromir in soft tones before the fire-blackened walls of his beloved city how Denethor, maddened by grief, had refused to believe any word that his favourite son was alive. That in his madness and his fury he had sent Faramir to Osgiliath, to die upon the whim of grief.  
  
_But how could he not?_ Boromir refused to believe it. _Why did he not believe I am alive? Look at me, Gandalf; I’m the most alive of any man I know!_  
  
_His mind was lost to the Palantir,_ Mithrandir said, sounding more old and more worn than Boromir had ever heard him. _The Enemy cannot use it to show lies, but he can produce untruths: visions of you dead at Parth Galen, before you were healed. The strain of it…it was too much for him. I am sorry, Boromir._  
  
Speaking with Faramir, he had tried to laugh it off. _I suppose we have both been dead men once in our time_ , he joked, but the laughter tasted as ash upon his tongue. Every man must know their father fallible at some time in his life, but Denethor tried to hurt his little brother, and for that Boromir does not know if he can ever forgive him.

But then these are dark days, and some of them have greater trials to face than others.  
  
He enters the House, bowing low to the healers that pass quietly in the halls – they know his face well, from sitting by the bedside of his brother and a hundred other wounded soldiers in their turn – and then goes to the room of the Lady Eowyn. Sitting upon her bed she is precisely how he has always remembered her: proud and strong, yet brittle, frost which has only to be touched by sunlight to melt. Frost which both longs for and fears that warm, tender surrender. A shadow lingers on her face even now.  
  
“Lady, would you walk awhile with me?”  
  
-  
  
Here, then, is how it happened:  
  
Gandalf striding into the great hall of Meduseld, and beside him, Aragorn: an image of the kings of old born again. An image to turn any right-thinking mortal’s eye, and maybe that was how it would have turned out, save when Wormtongue spits one insult too many.  
  
Boromir came forward then, still weak from his wounds but with a fire blazing in his heart: _My lord, I have always been a friend to Rohan, and many men here know me. And I would do much to honour the peace of your hall; but I say this, that if that man speaks another word against Mithrandir I shall take his crooked tongue and cut it from his mouth._  
  
Just then, he thought he saw a glimmer of a smile upon the White Lady’s mouth.  
  
He has never been used to seeing desire in another’s eye, so it is not until Gandalf draws him to one side after their return to Meduseld that he realises what has happened. _Be careful there, my friend; you have a breakable gift in your keeping. Any heart is a fragile thing, but the Lady Eowyn’s more than most._  
  
Boromir had never realised. Only that when he spoke of some fell adventure or mighty deed he had seen her looking at him sometimes: her expression hungry, as if she were yearning for something far beyond her grasp that only he could grant.  
  
-  
  
They sit together in the gardens: a little awkwardly, with neither looking at the other. The scent of the small blue flowers that fill the trees, and the green lushness of the oleander, rises sweetly on the air. It’s almost spring, Boromir thinks with a start. After such a winter as this he thought it would never come; and yet surely that is the way of things, that even after the darkest winter, there must come a day when spring peeks its small green head above the soil to begin life anew.  
  
With such comfort in mind he turns to Eowyn. Though her eyes are dark and her injured arm strapped carefully to her body by sling and splint, her back is rigid and her chin held high. She looked to him poised, expectant, as if she has already expected this conversation. When she begged him not to follow Aragorn to the Paths of the Dead she had reached out one pale hand in plea, a momentary flicker of surrender – and he had stepped back, wary of what it was she offered. In his face she had read all.  
  
By the Valar, Boromir wishes he had Aragorn’s gift for tender speech.  
  
“I am sorry,” he murmurs finally. It seems the best thing to say.  
  
“Do not be,” Eowyn tells him. “It was my fault. I was a fool.”  
  
_A fool, for looking at the Captain of Gondor with such admiration?_ Boromir thinks to tease and then bites the jest back. That would be a joke for the soldiers’ guardroom, and though Eowyn has a fierce she has long had no opportunity for such jests, no freedom for camaraderie and foolishness. Maybe that is part of the problem. “Had I realised your feelings sooner I would have made matters plain. I am sorry if I gave you any false impressions.”  
  
“You didn’t. Or rather, any… _impressions_ were the work of my own hope.” She keeps her chin level, and when his gaze softens her lips become the thin edge of a blade. “Do not pity me, my lord. I do not wish that from any man.”  
  
“I am not. Pitying you, that is. Or, maybe pity is not quite the word, but maybe sympathy…” Boromir breaks off with a curse, then recalls that he is speaking to a lady, then curses his clumsy tongue again. Finally his head falls into his hands. “I am making a right pig’s ear out of this, aren’t I?”  
  
At least that’s brought a twitch to her lips. “Somewhat. _Pig’s ear_?”  
  
“A friend of mine uses the term.” Stout-hearted Samwise, whenever the dinner was becoming a mess, Stars and moon, but I am making a right pig’s ear out of this one! But thinking of Sam makes him think of Frodo, and Boromir grimaces. “I rather wronged him by wronging one whom he loves, and I hope I have the chance to make amends before the end.”  
  
“You think you will still have the opportunity?”  
  
“I hope so,” Boromir says. His gaze draws irresistibly to the East. “Hope is all we have remaining to us now.”  
  
They sit in silence awhile: she thinking of her uncle, who clung to hope, and he thinking of his father, who lost it.  
  
“You’re a good man, Lord Boromir,” Eowyn says finally, and very quietly. “I hope I did not embarrass you or discomfort you in any way.”  
  
Her smile emboldens him to jest: “I, discomforted by the affection of the Lady Eowyn: most valiant and beautiful of all of Rohan? Lady, if I’d had a minstrel to hand I should have proclaimed it in the streets!”  
  
Eowyn snorts, hiding her face in her hand.  
  
“In fact,” Boromir continues, “my companion Legolas is, as you know, an Elf; and elves are said to be wondrous skilled with lyric-making. I will pin him down when I next find him and have him compose a ballad so all might know of my good fortune – ”  
  
“Oh, shut up,” she scolds, and even swats him about the shoulder. “I am sure you would be better served with songs of your doings.”  
  
His expression turns grave then, and he nods slowly. “Is that what you thought when we met, my lady? In truth I believe you love a shadow and a thought, a promise of glory and great deeds and adventure, and nothing more. For not all my doings have been praise-worthy.”  
  
Eowyn opens her mouth to ask – but something in his eyes makes her stop. Instead she nods slowly, her eyes cast down to the ground. “I do hope then, my lord, that you are able to talk with _someone_ about such things. Whoever you do wed must be a worthy woman indeed.”  
  
“Perhaps,” he says, “but I do not think that will come to pass. For I have no desire to wed, my lady, and no love for any save the love for my companions and my city.”  
  
_He is twenty, maybe twenty-one, far and above the age where a green boy trembles before an unknown fear. And yet his hands do shake, though he hides this by clenching them into fists, and raises his chin as a man of Gondor sights down any enemy. “Tell me,” he says, “is there something amiss with me? Something that can be cured?”_  
  
_Mithrandir – old, constant, wreathed in smoke – looks up in surprise. As well he might, for Boromir has always had limited time for wizards. Too much time spent on ancient lore, and not enough turned to the living._  
  
_When he explains, with forceful words, what plagues him Mithrandir’s eyes soften with kindness. “Only that which is ill can be cured,” he says, “and there is nothing here which requires my healing.”_  
  
You do not know my father _, Boromir thinks, and bites down on the unworthy thought. His father is noble, strong, learned, steadfast and true. To think ill of him, even for a moment, suits him poorly_.  
  
_Only…he can imagine with painful diamond-clarity going before the Steward of the City and saying to him in ringing voice that his eldest son has no desire to wed, that had he his way he would never be troubled with such matters. He can imagine his father’s face, on hearing that no child of Boromir would ever sit upon the black seat of the Stewards._  
  
_“Mithrandir, I am not a child,” he says, in as patient a voice as he can muster. “I march in a company of the men of Minas Tirith: I have heard more bawdy songs and set foot in more pillow-houses than I care to count. I know precisely that it is…that it is natural for a man to desire others, and unnatural to desire none.” Even the men whose faces and form he admires, as one admires a piece of fine art, he wishes nothing more to share their companionship and fight at their side. He has heard stories of a man’s love for man but has decided, on balance, this does not overly interest him either._  
  
_Mithrandir chuckles, but the sound is kind. “And this is what comes of the men of Gondor looking only to their own stone walls instead of out to the wide world! You might find it is far more varied and bewildering than anything you have heard.” At Boromir’s impatient look he softens further. “There are many who have no desire for love as you take it – for romance, or the desires of flesh. There are those to whom such desire comes only after long and good companionship, and those who never experience it at – and I’m sure are those who experience such love and desires in fashions even I, with all my learning, have not yet discovered. Is that not wonderful, that should be such variety in the world?”_  
  
_“I feel like I am back with my schoolmasters,” Boromir complains._  
  
_“Maybe if you’d listened to them more, you would not be here with me now.”_  
  
_He gives an impatient whine._  
  
_“Boromir, I have known many who have lived long and happy lives without the need for desire! Take heart that you are in good company, and leave these regrets behind.”_  
  
_“I fear that I am unnatural,” Boromir says quietly._  
  
_“Uncommon, maybe,” Mithrandir returns with a smile, “and rare, certainly. But that, Boromir, is no poor thing.”_  
  
_It shames him, but for many years after this whenever Mithrandir visits Minas Tirith he makes himself absent, stays far away. He is a soldier of Gondor, after all, and for one to see him so vulnerable with his shield down unsettles him greatly._  
  
Thank the Valar that age brings its wisdom! Age, and the reassurance of friends – like the men under his command, who could care less whether a man desires women or men or a pint of ale after a hard battle, as long as he is true and bold – and Faramir – who could not care less about his brother’s proclivities, even if the fact that every woman or man in Minas Tirith yearns for him infuriates his baby brother beyond all measure – and wizards and elves and dwarves and hobbits and all manner of sundry creatures.  
  
His shame is passed; he is happy now. Maybe he admires the yearnings of love from afar: he has a hidden fondness for the Lay of Luthien, and no-one was more happy than he when Legolas and Gimli at long last confessed their feelings for one another – _about bloody time, don’t you think?_ he’d drawled to Aragorn the night after Helm’s Deep, when they’d come across the elf and the dwarf sleeping peacefully in one another’s arms. But he has never yearned for such things for himself, and doubts he ever will.  
  
(Though it was the one contention lurking as a shadow between himself and his father. A fact unspoken, but ever-present.)  
  
All this passes in an instant; he sees understanding dawn in Eowyn’s eyes. He thinks to make a jest of it – _weep, weep, for the maids of Minas Tirith who will never have a chance to wed fair Boromir!_ – but she pre-empts him. “I understand. At least, I think I do. My cousin Theodred, he was never one for the maids or for the Riders either. My uncle did not understand but he would say to Theodred, it is not my job to understand. It is only my job to love you.” She give a wan smile. “To love you, and raise you to be a king worthy of Rohan.”  
  
“He sounds like a good man.”  
  
“He was,” Eowyn says, and her voice cracks then: the cracking of ice pushed down by some great weight, when there is only moments until the entire mess crumbles around you. “He was…he was the best man I have ever known.”  
  
She weeps without shedding a tear: her face dry but her body wracked and shaking with grief, her sounds those of a wounded animal. Boromir can only sit there, a hand to her wrist, reassuring her that he is still there. He would like to take her in his arms, a great bear-hug of an embrace as he has done to many a soldier in his command, but that is not what she desires from him now. It would do more harm than good.  
  
“All of us knew Theoden to be a great king. I am truly sorry for his passing.”  
  
“As am I,” Eowyn says, dragging her sleeve at her eyes. “And I was sorry for the Lord Denethor’s passing as well. He sounded like a great man.”  
  
“He was,” Boromir admitted sadly. “Once upon a time. But my brother is well, and for that I am glad. I told you at Meduseld, didn’t I, that I had a brother?”  
  
“Many times.”  
  
He catches the grin in her voice. “Well, I do. A fine brother, Faramir; gentle and learned. He is here too in the Houses of Healing; maybe you might seek his company while you both recover?”  
  
“Maybe, my lord. But the people of Rohan are not known for our scholarly ways, and no doubt he will think me very dull.”  
  
Faramir would never be so churlish, Boromir thinks, but bites back the indignant comment. Not everyone can love Faramir as much as he does, at least, not without knowing him.  
  
“Do you know, I think it is all for the best,” he says lightly as they sit there in the dimming light, with the newness of spring all around them. “We are of similar tempers, you and I: strong, proud, and war-like. We should never have had a moments’ peace were we to wed.”  
  
Eowyn snorts with laughter again. “I suppose not! So you think that, if I were to wed, I would suit a quiet man, a gentle soul?”  
  
“To keep the peace in your household, I suppose it would be sensible.”  
  
“Then I must follow your example, Lord Boromir,” Eowyn says, and though she makes light of it, he can see the new pain in her eyes. The regret of it: the belief that she will never find a man to match her, and would sooner remain proud and free and alone than settle for any lesser man. He admires it greatly. “For I could not wed a man without spirit.”  
  
_I always did tell Faramir he should wed a valiant woman_ , Boromir thought, _for though he is bold he has never learned to speak for himself_. But he keeps these thoughts to himself.  
  
-  
  
“Well?” Aragorn murmurs when Boromir returns to the king’s tents upon the field. “How does she fare?”  
  
“Grievously wounded in spirit and body,” Boromir says, “but she has a strong will, and I only pray it leads her to peace, and not despair.” At Aragorn’s pointed look he rolls his eyes. “Oh, for the love of heaven, Aragorn! I was kind and I was tactful; you need not look at me as if I had just spat in the woman’s face/”  
  
“I am glad to hear it.”  
  
“With so much still lying before us, and you care so deeply about the affairs of one lady’s heart.”  
  
“And one man’s heart too, my friend.” Aragorn pats his shoulder gently. “But why should I not? If we stop caring for such careless matters, like love and friendship, we might as well be like the Dark Lord himself.”  
  
“Did he speak with the lady?” calls Legolas from beyond the tent. “Was it nobly done? Did he act gently and courteously?”  
  
“Valar save me, does everyone in this camp think me nothing more than a tactless oaf?”  
  
“Well, you have spent much of your time around soldiers, lad,” says Gimli as the pair enter. “Forgive us for fearing that you have lost some of the gentleness in your speech.”  
  
“Oh, I would never claim to have such a poetic tongue as you, Master Dwarf.”  
  
Legolas passes a grin to Gimli. “Be kind to our friend, Gimli. He has done a brave thing today, and the lady is better for it.”  
  
“If only it were possible to heal the spirit beyond what I have already done,” sighs Aragorn.  
  
“I really should advise Faramir to check in on the lady while we are away East,” Boromir remarks. At their sharp glances he shrugs, guileless. “He is good company, is my brother. I am sure the lady will value his company.”  
  
-  
  
“It would ease my heart, if while the Sun yet shines, I could see you still,” Faramir says gently to the White Lady. Were he to express pity, he suspects, she would be filled with fury: like a wounded animal, who might snarl at any coming too close. But he cannot help but be kind, and curious; he thinks he understands why Boromir asked him to seek the lady’s company, for despite her frustrations with the world she is bold and fierce. “For you and I have both passed under the wings of the Shadow, and the same hand drew us back.”  
  
“Very well,” she says. And for a time they walk in the gardens, and all is peaceful between them. Little is their speech until they part; at which point Eowyn glances to him, with mirth unbidden in her eyes. “Is it true that as a youth you once clambered up a tree in the fifth level of this city to rescue a child’s cat, only to be stuck up there yourself?”  
  
Faramir’s expression flattens. _Mercy save us_. “You’ve been talking to Boromir, haven’t you?”  
  
“I have,” she says, and for a moment her smile becomes a grin. She turns to enter the house again, and the last comment is thrown over her shoulder: “He said you were very bold! The bravest man he has ever known!”  
_  
Spare me from well-meaning relatives_ , Faramir thinks; but he is laughing as he does so.


End file.
